Blonde or brunette?
by Bella
Summary: Tony suffers from appendicitis. Set in season 1 between "Guess what happened on the way to the moon" and "Jeannie and the marriage caper" and sheds some light on the early days of Tony and Jeannie and what Melissa felt and thought back then.
**Blonde or brunette?**

 **Disclaimer** : I dream of Jeannie belongs to Sidney Sheldon Productions.

 **Summary:** Tony suffers from appendicitis. Set in season 1 between "Guess what happened on the way to the moon" and "Jeannie and the marriage caper" and sheds some light on the early days of Tony and Jeannie and what Melissa felt and thought back then.

 **A/N:** I never suffered from appendicitis, so I'm not quite sure if I describe things correctly, particularly surgery in the United States in the sixties is a little mystery to me. But I had to spend a few days in hospital last week and while being bored out of my mind (audio books can take you only so far when you're not allowed to read) I dreamt up this little piece to keep myself occupied. And being on sick leave actually gives me time to write it all down.

Tony awoke with a slight belly ache and nausea one morning a few weeks after Jeannie had come to live with him. _Must be Jeannie's original oriental food from last night_ , he thought while struggling to get up. All the new and unfamiliar spices apparently didn't agree with him and suppressing a groan he resolved to ask Jeannie to adjust her cooking to modern American fare with the occasional nod to European and Asian dishes. Ought he buy her a cookbook? Or would she be offended, if he did? Because whatever the current after-effects he suffered from, bottom line was: Jeannie was a first-rate cook and even if the food wasn't familiar it nevertheless always tasted delicious. In fact he needed to be careful or he would turn very quickly into a very round marshmallow. And so he hid his pain from her - very heroically in his opinion - and even ate the breakfast she prepared for him, though he had absolutely no appetite and went on his way to the air base, optimistically thinking his stomach would settle quickly enough, perhaps when what bugged him left him one way or the other.

He held out until he was almost ready to leave for the day, before he knocked on Dr. Bellows' office door. And one hour later he gingerly laid down on a stretcher in the small air base hospital and got ready to be rolled into the operating theatre. Diagnosis: Appendicitis.

At home Jeannie looked every couple of seconds at her hour glass. Where was her master? He hadn't mentioned he would be home late this evening. Worriedly she began to pace in her bottle and tried to come up with different scenarios of where he might be and what might detain him. The black demon might have picked him up, for instance. They were engaged to be married after all. She frowned at the thought, as she was convinced that Melissa Stone was NOT the right woman for her master. He needed a gentle, warm, loving woman who took care of his needs and not one that saw her womanly tasks as chores one had to do instead of loving acts of service. That one couldn't even properly cook! She knew because she had tasted some of the leftovers – no wonder her master was so frightfully thin. But she would fatten him up quickly enough and then he would look like a proper and dignified master!

Eventually she decided to start looking for him. What if he needed her help and the silly man was too proud and too stubborn to admit it? Just like when he had gone on that brutal survival mission with Captain Healey in the Saudi-Arabian desert. She had nightmares about it, so emaciated and frail he had come back to her and almost at the brink of sure death. It had taken her **weeks** to restore him to what he had been like before and that was with the help of her genie powers. No, she really didn't like this NASA and Dr. Bellows, when they treated him so cruelly yet pretending to appreciate and praise him. Focussing on him until she felt his presence, she blinked and materialised in a pale blue tiled, sterile looking room with her master lying on a sort of table with a green cloth draped over him. His face was a grimace of pain, which he tried very quickly to mask when he saw her. How brave he was!

Immediately she rushed forward and took his hand and bent over him to run her fingers through his hair in a gesture of mutual comfort.

"Jeannie!? What are you doing here?" he asked weakly.

"I'm worried about you. You didn't come home."

"And I won't for a couple of days. I've got appendicitis. I'm about to get surgery, so you need to leave now."

"What's appendicitis and surgery, master? Where does it hurt?" She looked anxiously over him. What could she do for him to make his pain go away?

He tugged his hand free of hers and lifted a corner of the cloth to touch his lower right side. Jeannie gasped and wailed in desperation. NO! Not her precious master! No one ever survived the pain in the right side, everyone knew that!

"Oh master, please let me help you. I can't let you die! I just found you." She was frantic with worry. He must let her help him! His very life depended on her!

"I'm not going to die, Jeannie. All's fine. Please calm yourself. And DON'T try to heal me." He added hastily as an after-thought.

"But you will surely die, if I don't! I can blink away the pain and you can get right up from this strange contraption."

"Jeannie. Listen. I'm NOT going to die. Medicine quite advanced these last two thousand years. They will put me to sleep, then cut me open..."

"CUT YOU OPEN!" She wailed. "NO! They kill you!"

"They will cut me open down here and remove my inflamed appendix and then they will stitch me up and I will wake up and all will be fine. The surgeon has done this many, many times, Jeannie. No one dies from this in this country and at this time of age. It's a perfectly safe and easy operation and you needn't worry about it. Please trust me."

But Jeannie looked unconvinced. What if this surgeon made a mistake? Cutting her master's body open! Unthinkable! She would just blink this appendix thing in him away. She wasn't going to take any chances with his health! She crossed her arms in front of her.

"Jeannie, STOP IT! I know what you're thinking and I want you to promise me that you will go home now and be a good genie. And in a couple of days I'll return from hospital and you can fuss over me to your heart's content."

"But master, you need me!"

"Jeannie, you can't help me here. If you insist on it, then go home. That'll be the most help you can give me."

"But..."

"Jeannie. Home. Now."

She let out a frustrated cry and took his head into her hands and kissed him forcefully then gentled her kiss. If this was the very last time she was to ever see him alive... She knew she wasn't supposed to do this. Her master had explained it to her more than once when she tried to show him any affection. Apparently in America one didn't kiss other girls when one was engaged to be married or already married for that matter. She found it a very odd custom. Her cousin Hamid had six wives and in Rome every man of station had at least one mistress. Why did he insist on denying himself? He really was an oddball at times.

Tony couldn't help but respond to her loving kiss and he hated himself for it. But no matter how often he berated himself, his body had very different ideas every time they kissed.

"Please, don't make me leave you. I couldn't stand it, if you need me and I'm not there to help you." she whispered against his lips.

"You can't stay." He whispered back.

"Hush." Her lips were fractions of an inch away from his and he leant up to meet hers again, when the door opened and Jeannie blinked out.

"Tony." He turned his head and saw Melissa enter the room. "I just heard it from Dr. Bellows. How are you feeling, my poor darling?"

"It hurts, Lis. You can't stay for long. They will come for me any minute now."

"You're right, but I'm going to wait outside and be there when you wake up." She bent down and brushed her lips over his before she pulled out a handkerchief to wipe off the lipstick smudges she had left behind.

"See you in a bit, darling."

"See you, Lis." He smiled for her and waved goodbye, when she looked back at him before she left the room.

In her little hideout next to a pill bottle on a shelf Jeannie seethed. The black demon was back! And she didn't worry one bit about him. She should hold his hand, stay with him until they came for him, walk with him and then watch over him, when they cut him open to make sure they didn't make any mistakes. She should shower him with kisses like he deserved. She should tell him she loved him, tear at her clothes and her hair in worry. But the cold she-devil only waved back at him and left. How could she do that?! Well, she, Jeannie, would not go and leave him alone in his pain! She would go with her master and watch over him. And may the gods help the surgeon, if he made any mistakes!

The door opened again and the orderlies came in.

"Well, captain, you're about to embark on a short flight to Venus." They rolled him out and Jeannie blinked herself underneath the green cloth to go with him. In the operating theatre she quickly found a new hiding spot and watched with her heart in her throat, when they put a mask over his face and asked him to count backwards from hundred.

"Hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-six, ninety-sev..." He was unconscious.

"Well, let's get started" a man covered in green clothes and a mask stated and asked a nurse for a scalpel. It was really quite tiny, but to Jeannie it was the size of a broadsword, old, blunt and rusty and when his precious blood welled up in the two feet-long cut, Jeannie fought with all her might her instincts to throw her body over his to protect her master and whisk him away to a deserted place where she could nurse him back to health undisturbed by anyone and anything. He had asked her to trust him and she wanted to, very much. But it was so hard to watch and feel utterly helpless. Pacing up and down, tearing her veil to shreds in her nervous excitement, Jeannie couldn't wait for this torture to come to an end. She couldn't bear watch this, yet could not not watch. What took them so long? She felt like hours, days went by.

"Okay, nurse, stitch him up."

Finally! Up to now it had been just as her master had described it to her. Oh, he was such a knowledgeable man! Eagerly she rolled with him to the anaesthetic recovery room to wait for him to wake up. She convinced herself, if only he would wake up and look at her, everything was going to be just fine. But Tony Nelson was still dead to the world. Biting her thumbnail in thought Jeannie struggled with herself and then blinked to broaden the hospital bed the orderlies had transferred her master to. Carefully she stretched out next to him and laid her arm protectively over him. His heartbeat under her ear was steady and she felt like weeping from relief. He would pull through. From time to time a nurse came to check up on him, but Jeannie blinked away every time and back immediately when he was alone again and took her place at his side, making sure his pillow was shook up comfortably and he was neither too warm nor too cold.

Eventually he began to stir and she stretched up and whispered softly into his ear.

"It's me, Jeannie, master. You're well. They say you will recover completely. And I'm here for you, my brave master. I'm here. All's well."

"Jea..." Tony rasped still more asleep than awake.

"Yes, master. Your Jeannie. I'm here."

"Jean..." He was asleep again. Jeannie snuggled back into his good side and listened some more to his beautiful heartbeat, young and strong and healthy. They would be together for a long, long time, her master and she, and she began to speak to him of their future in a hushed voice.

A bit later Tony was more lucid and tried to recall the remarkable dream he had. He had laid in Jeannie's arms and she had promised him she would be there for him and never leave him for the rest of his life. And he had felt loved and secure, knowing that no evil would ever befoul him as long as she was with him.

The door opened and Melissa came in and kissed him softly before sitting down in the visitor's chair next to his bed.

"How are you feeling?"

"Still a bit groggy. I think I'm about to fall asleep again any second."

"That's to be expected. Dr. Bellows says you will make a full recovery. I'm going to sit with you for a while." She gave his hand a loving squeeze.

"Thanks, Jeannie." Tony whispered and was asleep again.

 _Jeannie!?_ Melissa's hand flew to her mouth and she gasped loudly. Who was this Jeannie? And what was she to Tony? Immediately she recalled the blond girl leaning against the frame of Tony's bedroom door upon their return after his failed mission dressed in nothing but his shirt. Men were so blind, but she had read the blond witch immediately. Her entire body language had been a declaration of war on her. She, Melissa, had been so rattled, that she had retreated in defeat, spouting nonsense about tolerance.

Tony had explained her presence to her a couple of days later and it all had sounded very sensible and logical so she had put the girl out of her mind again. Simply put, when they were kids in Salt Lake City she had lived with her family a bit further down the street and when the blonde expressed her wish to travel through Florida, Tony's mother had asked him to take her on for a couple of days, which had coincided with his space mission. And so she had lived in his house while he had been away and the girl had been equally surprised to see them as they had been to see her. And the most important part, she had returned to Salt Lake City weeks ago, so Tony had said. So he had said...

The next moment she scolded herself for being so distrustful. Her Tony was an honest, a decent man, he wouldn't lie to her. They were to be married in short two weeks and it didn't matter that they had postponed the wedding twice by now because of NASA. Her friends could say what they wanted about that. Tony and she didn't keep any secrets from each other. _Well, you do, don't you?_ She argued with herself. _That's different. Daddy asked me not to tell anyone until it is officially confirmed by the State Department._ _Which is a very sensible approach says Grover._ It would be good for Tony to get away from NASA. She searched his peaceful face. How handsome he was and a natural in knowing how to move in society. They were perfect for each other. They complemented each other. They shared the same goals. They were both young and highly ambitious. They mingled in the the right sort of circles where they attracted the right sort of attention from the right sort of people. And he was so very gifted. A brilliant scientific head and a warrior at heart, her daddy called him. He would get far in the service with her daddy's support and careful promotion. They had such a bright future ahead of them. She could see it all in her mind now. First they would go with her father to Europe. She would act as her father's personal assistant, Tony would be his military attaché. And in two or three years they would have made the necessary contacts in politics and economics and return to the States and Tony could choose his further career – politics, economics, intelligence. All three had their advantages. She mulled it over. CEO of a big corporation was very good, because they would become one of the movers and shakers. On the other hand, intelligence was even better. It always paid to pull the strings un the background. _Mrs. M,_ now that had a nice ring to it. No, Tony would go into politics. He would be a marvellous governor. And who knows, in twenty years time she might become Melissa Nelson, First Lady. Of course they would have two children as soon as they returned to America. A boy and a girl. And they would be fabulously intelligent and good-looking. Anthony jr would of course attend Harvard or Princeton. And Alexandra would follow her mother's footsteps and go to West Point. There was no reason why either shouldn't marry into the Kennedy clan.

She reached over to brush his hair out of his forehead. Yes, it would be the right thing for Tony to leave NASA. He had been under such terrible strain these last couple of months. First the long hours put into the launch of Stardust 1. He had worked almost every night until late. He had stopped attending the important parties with her in Miami and Tallahassee, pouring all his energy and thoughts into _his baby_ as he called the mission. And then he had crashed. It had been a terribly blow for him, she knew. And then he had really changed. Almost over night he had become jumpy and inexplicably neurotic. And he developed some odd new interests, like dressing up in oriental costumes. And he had turned into a homebody to her disappointment, well that wasn't so bad on reflection. She loved to have him over, but there was always her father around... She rather spent her evenings at his place, but he was strangely reluctant to have her. The last time she had been there she had found several books on American history, world history, important historical figures of the last two thousand years and a big volume on Persian history and oriental customs, traditions and ancient religions and beliefs of that area. She had even found a globe in his study with two small flags glued to Cocoa Beach and Baghdad of all places. She considered it very commendable to get familiar with history, but not Persian, that was a waste of time when they were about to relocate to Europe and not to the Middle East. Just recently she had started reading up on Portuguese history to prepare for her father's first post in overseas. But perhaps someone had told him about her father's very probable prospects and he focussed on the Moorish reign in Portugal and their origins? He was an Air Force officer after all. Naturally he would be interested in conquests she tried to find an explanation for his strange behaviour. She had even mentioned it to her father and he had told her that Tony had only been found by sheer dumb luck and if his capsule had dive bombed into the water at a steeper angle by only five degrees, he would have been smashed to smithereens on the water surface. It was no wonder that he suffered from these traumatic experiences and needed some sort of outlet. And if he came to terms with these by dressing up as a sultan and reading up ancient oriental myths... Dr. Bellows saw no cause for worry yet. In fact on his last two training missions he had shown the most remarkable mental resilience and determination he had told her. It all sounded so very sensible and logical. Yet...

What was he smiling faintly in his dream about? Was it about a brunette or a blonde? _Jeannie_ he had mumbled, when she had reached for his hand. What if that girl hadn't left town? What if she still lived in his house? Yet, she had found no female traces apart from her own little knick-knacks. A jar of her hand cream over the bathroom sink, a box of lightly scented paper handkerchiefs in the living room left from when she had the sniffles, a favourite mug of hers in his kitchen... but no traces of another girl. And no matter how much she hated herself for this weakness, she felt jealous and insecure. What if she was only a means of advance for him? What if he really loved this Jeannie? Was that the reason he was so reluctant to deepen their physical relationship and insisted on waiting for their honeymoon? Loathe as she was to admit it, the girl was a beauty and she had history with Tony, if they grew up together. Perhaps they had been as close as she and Grover? She had never told her father, because he would have gone ballistic, but Grover had been the first boy to kiss her in celebration of loosing their braces. And they had promised to write faithfully every week when they left for their respective colleges and for the first couple of months they did. And then they lost sight of each other, each caught up in their individual lives. Meeting him again in Washington by chance had been such a pleasure and it had felt as if no time had passed since they had seen each other last. They had immediately rekindled their old friendship. So she ought to give Tony the benefit of doubt and as soon as they were on Honolulu, things would fall into the right place.

Attentively Jeannie watched from her hideout as various emotions flittered across Melissa Stone's face until it set on a permanent frown when she looked at her sleeping fiancé. To Jeannie it spelled doubt.

 _The end_


End file.
